When uptake of the vaccine isn’t as hoped over the coming months, bear this is mind. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/11/gp-practices-england-opt-out-covid-vaccine-rollout?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A key driver of mounting suspicion of vaccines is people having a poor local relationship with health services, not knowing how to access services, not feeling treated as an individual, struggling to get an appointment etc.

In this sense, the government’s war on internet disinformation that they made a big fuss about pre-pandemic was always a little convenient: it obscured how an over stretched health service was at risk of losing patients’ trust.

Add into that a toxic brew of increased awareness around corporate interests in health services, dwindling trust in authority, *and* some internet conspiracy type stuff and it’s a toxic brew.

So the absolute worst thing that could happen amidst all this, is that people aren’t able to access the vaccine at a familiar, local, accessible, trusted location, administered by someone with whom they already have a patient relationship.

It’s very easy to talk about “anti-vaxxers” as if they’re all just one homogenous mass, and as if this is exactly the same as when people were concerned about standard child vaccinations. People are worried for different reasons, and some of it is a structural problem.

If people don’t feel properly informed by their health service, don’t feel they can reliably access that service, and don’t feel as if they the patient are being shown due consideration, they will react badly.

Now imagine telling those people, oh, don’t worry, the army will be handling your vaccination at a mass treatment centre. Think how that’s going to go down, and whether the doubters will be persuaded.